Category Archives: Training

As I’m finally recovering from two rounds of a cold and fell off the blogging bandwagon, here’s a guest post by my coach, Mark Orton, on getting to the next level.

The reasons we decide to train on the bike are different for each of us. Some people do it for the fitness, others for weight loss, some to dominate the hills on the weekly rides, and there a variety of different reasons others train. No matter what your reason for training, you want to see results from the energy you exert toward your goal. I think there are a lot of cyclists out there who have the potential to do much better than they are currently doing, but find themselves falling into some bad habits and traps of training. I’m going to talk about the most common of the pitfalls that people fall into, some tools and how to use them, and how to get the most out of your training.

Having a good training plan is vital to achieving your goals, but even with a well thought out plan, there are some pitfalls that cyclists can fall into. It’s my experience that a self-coached cyclists often runs into the problem of not going easy enough on easy days, nor hard enough on hard days. When your training schedule calls for a day off, or a recovery ride, it needs to be just that, a very low intensity zone 1 ride (more on zones below), or a day completely off the bike. On the flipside, when you need to do a hard day, it needs be at an intensity appropriate for your stage of training and that day. By not allowing your body the time to recover, you come into the next hard training day still tired and you can’t get the full benefit of that workout. Recovery days are arguably the most important days of the training week; these are the days where you actually get stronger. The hard days wear you down, and you need those breaks to allow the muscles to adapt and rebuild, coming back stronger. It’s the cycle of work and rest that builds you up.

There are a several tools that can be used to fine-tune your training. There are two that are used quite frequently by cyclists, the heart rate monitor and the power meter. When used properly, these tools can help a cyclist train much more effectively by targeting their workouts to train specific metabolic systems, such as VO2 Max or Anaerobic Threshold. There are downsides to each of these training tools, so deciding which is right for you is a matter of personal preference, and it depends on the training program and, to some extent, the discipline you participate in. The heart rate monitor is a direct reading of what your body is doing, how it is responding to the effort you’re exerting, read in beats per minute. However, the heart rate lags, so a common mistake is to go too hard at the beginning of an interval, which spikes your heart rate above the zone you’re shooting for and diminishes the time you will be spending in your targeted zone. It is also impossible to use a heart rate monitor for very short intervals, as the time it takes for the heart to respond to the effort is often longer than the interval itself. This is where a power meter shines, power is immediate. Power meters display your power output in terms of watts. The problem with power meters is that people can become a slave to the numbers, becoming fixated on the number and never allowing themselves to ride easy, always wanting to see bigger numbers than the last time they rode. Another downfall of the power meter is price, while you can get an entry level heart rate monitor relatively cheaply, $100 USD or less, power meters are expensive costing $1000 USD and more for most models.

It is impossible to train without having something to differentiate between training zones. That is where the tools mentioned above can help you take your training to the next level. By performing some tests with your choice of those tools, you can set your zones based on heart rate or power and use those zones to train with. However, that’s not the only method for establishing training zones. Another method, which is used by many athletes, from novice cyclists to professionals, is that of perceived exertion. There are many different scales out there that you can use; an internet search on “perceived exertion” is a great place to start. The advantage of using perceived exertion is that it doesn’t require any special equipment, and your body will automatically adjust for dehydration and fatigue, unlike power. Some experts see this as a disadvantage of both perceived exertion and heart rate, however I believe if your body feels it’s pushing at 95%, it is pushing at 95%, regardless of what the power numbers might show, metabolically speaking the desired effect will be taking place.

So now that we know some of the pitfalls of training and some of the tools that can be used to maximize your training, how do we best put them to use? First, look at your training plan, are you incorporating both hard days and easy days that allow your body to be pushed to the limit, then given time to recover from that hard effort? You can use any of the three tools discussed above, the heart rate monitor, the power meter, or perceived exertion, to determine how hard you are pushing during any given workout. You should divide your exertion levels (using any of the above tools) into zones. I use zones that are similar to the zones developed by Andy Coggan, Ph.D., you can relate these zones as shown in the chart below (Coggan, 2012):

Using the above chart, there are some things that need to be explained. The power is based off of a percentage of Functional Threshold Power, which is defined as the maximal power that can be held for 1 hour. The heart rate is based off of Lactic or Anaerobic Threshold heart rate. Generically explained, this is the heart rate at which your body stops effectively clearing lactic acid and you begin to get the burn in the legs as you go harder. And the perceived effort is based off of the Borg 10-point scale of perceived exertion.

If you utilize these tips, you’ll find your training more effective than ever before. This information can be used to smash through that plateau that you keep hitting. Riding hard all the time is not training, a smart approach to training, utilizing both hard and easy days and training in all of the different zones, when appropriate, will give you the best results possible.

Reference:

Coggan, A. (2012). Power Training Levels. Retrieved from http://www.trainingpeaks.com.

Mark Orton has been involved with USA Cycling for several years, including serving as Head Coach for the East Coast Junior Development Camp. Mark is a USA Cycling Certified Coach, Certified Skills Instructor, and Certified Power Based Training coach. Mark also owns and is head coach at SpeedWorks Coaching. Beyond his coaching pursuits, Mark is a proud husband and father of three boys, and is a pro mountain biker.